Who were the British Free Corps in WW2 Germany?

Raised from Allied POW's, the BFC was Hitler's British Waffen SS unit - 

an amazing and true story of Britains in German Uniform in 1944-45

I first saw reference to the British Free Corps (BFC) in a book on military insignia by Guido Rossignoli. A plate of SS collar patches showed one with three lions and a brief note in the text mentioning  'a possible' unit of British personnel. I was intrigued, as a collector of Allied Forces military insignia and then aged about twelve, I had no knowledge of this apparent unit. They were listed under the Waffen SS units - armed SS units.

The BFC 'Three Lions' Collar patch

In the early 1990s, at a militaria fair where I was looking for American WW2 patches which I collected, I came across an SS style 3 lions collar tab patch on a stall. I was told it was a reproduction but it looked old and genuine. 

Early design for the BFC Sleeve insignia

Soon after at another fair I came across the book 'Jackals of the Reich' by Ronald Seth, which was about the history of the BFC. I didn't collect 3rd Reich military items or follow that branch of military history closely as I was into Allied equipment, but the premise of the book seemed worthy of a read as I was interested in WW2 history generally. 

Seth had been an SOE agent in WW2 and later a sex therapist under the name Robert Chartham post war.

Seth's book about the BFC was published in the late 60's -

Seth had been an agent overseas in WW2

As a sparetime military historian my focus was mainly on the Allied side of things, my (now late) grandfather was a WW2 Home Guard Auxiliary, trained as a resistance fighter in case of invasion. 

He told me he had visited Germany on a holiday in 1937 before WW2 and could see the way things were going there. He was well aware of the situation inside Germany from people he met on that holiday and said how they were spied on by their own people and talked carefully about what was going on politically.

Two versions of the BFC Waffen SS sleeve title
Earlier rare version above.

In 1998 I came across an elderly man named  'Jim' who sold militaria, who had an original BFC sleeve title in the early style. Some have disputed this type with the Germanic spelling of the title exists but this one was old and genuine, perhaps it may have been for the founding members?

I later purchased some American patches from Jim's widow a couple of years later, after he had died and she offered me this very rare BFC title which I saw, for £800, below the market value of £1250 plus at the time.

She said it was valued at £1250 then, but it wasn't really of interest to me as I didn't collect Third Reich items so I didn't buy it. Another collector I knew said that a BFC uniform existed in a military museum's store room at Aldershot which he had himself seen - perhaps this had been captured or discovered in 1945 in Germany? Likely taken from a BFC member  who surrendered.

Sir Oswald Moseley headed the British Union of Fascist or 'BUF'

the BUF were known as the 'Blackshirts' from their distinctive dress code.
Postwar Moseley formed the National Party of Europe, utilizing the distinctive lighting flash logo of the old BUF organisation

So, who were the BFC Members of Hitler's Germany? They ranged from captured Merchant Seamen, captured ordinary service personnel and some POW's with right-leaning political views or who had been BUF members in pre-war Britain. Some had been living in Germany prior to WW2 and had chosen not to return, some had been in places like Jersey to avoid conscription in WW2 and had been interned by the German forces when they invaded.

Colourised photo of BFC members

note the Union Jack Sleeve shield
Kenneth Berry at 2nd left facing camera

Hitler's Russian campaign, along with his forays into securing the territory of other countries he was active in, required many troops to fulfil his 'Lebensraum' expansion of Germany and its attached lands. 

The Russian campaign became bogged down and losses were heavy, indeed an RAF Gunner who had been on Lancasters in 1943 told me in 1993 that in 1941 the moment he heard that Russia had been invaded, people rejoiced in Britain, he knew then that the war was lost for Germany at this stage. The need for personnel to fight on the Eastern Front had been why Hitler had invaded the other European countries to the West and others in the East.

Reproduction BFC Insignia

The ideal of a racially pure 'Aryan' Germany, leave alone an SS unadulterated by non German 'non-Aryans' as they used to say, started to fade as the reality of losses to Germany mounted on the Russian front and the need for personnel demanded action. 

Example of an 'economy' BFC collar tab without a piped edge border

Early on in the war, the SS had recruited from within countries the Third Reich had invaded such as Norway, Holland, Belgium, France and later beyond into the East, Croatia, Rumania, Belarus, Ukraine and other countries including from the neutral Switzerland, Sweden and Spain.

Mostly the SS recruited from peoples that the SS considered to be 'Aryan' types, although due to the rapid expansion of the Reich through invading other countries, the SS was forced to employ people who didn't fit the 'Aryan' model that was the usual such as Turks, Azerbaijani's and Indians.

In 1943, it was suggested that a unit be formed from British prisoners of war and John Amery was largely put in charge of creating this new unit. Amery had been assisting with propaganda from within Germany for some years.

Representatives were appointed in prisoner of war camps to recruit POW's to fight on the Eastern Front, but not to fight against the Western Allied troops who by 1944 making their way across Europe from the Normandy beach heads.

Perhaps the thinking of the propaganda value of showing British personnel in Waffen SS uniforms with their own insignia was thought useful by the German high command in affecting the outcome of the war.

Distrust between the Allies led to options for Britain and America in planning different outcomes for post-war Europe as Stalin's Soviet Russia was becoming a problem, something that Rudolf Hess had predicted before the second world war. Clearly in retrospect, the other Allies should have pursued different courses of action which could have negated the Cold War and occupation of Eastern Germany and other Eastern European countries. If General Patton and Rudolf Hess had been listened to, the post war European picture would likely have saved us the Cold War. 

Propaganda recruiting poster - one of a series produced

note the Union Jack sleeve patch and cuff title depicted

In exchange for signing up the men were paid, ironically post war, the survivors received pensions from the German government! Often the BFC men took on pseudonyms to disguise their true identities. There were other attractions too, pay, better food, being freer, being able to live and freedom to move around in German cities and of course being able to meet women and in some cases marry them.

It seemed German women were attracted to the men with the Union Jack on their SS uniforms even though they were 'the enemy' as such. Kenneth Berry, a BFC recruit married his German girlfriend Carola Schwarz in 1947 and brought her to live in Cornwall where they remained together until his death in the 1992. His wife died in 2004.Other BFC members also married German women in WW2 such as Eric Pleasants.

Eric Pleasants, one of the BFC men whose history is well known from his books he has published, married a German Secretary in 1945 in Dresden, his marriage permission certificate was signed by Heinrich Himmler. Pleasants was an SS boxing champion taking part in bouts in Germany and beat the famous Max Schmelling!

Pleasants and John Leister a Londoner, who had been together since 1940 in Jersey with Pleasants, both enlisted in the BFC and made their escape in 1945 from Berlin. Leister and his wife (who was a secretary and managed to forge some travel permits) escaped to Italy, where Leister gave himeself up to the American forces.

Pleasants remained in Germany with his wife and evaded the Soviets as best they could in the chaos of 1945 and then went to live in the Soviet sector in the East. Both men helped in the clearing up of the chaos of Dresden after the big firestorm raid there with clearing bodies.

Pleasants remained in Germany post WW2 as a circus strongman but was detained by the Soviets on trumped up 'espionage' charges after helping Germans escape  to the Western sector and was sentenced to 25 years of hard labour in the Soviet Gulag system, only being freed early when Stalin died in 1953. Pleasants's crime had been helping people escape to the American zone from the Soviet zone. His wife was interned for 2 years but nothing more is known about her.

Eric Pleasants - a pacifist who was interred in Jersey in 1940

He joined the BFC and married a German woman in 1945

There were some BFC recruits who saw the organisation as an escape from the privations of captivity and saw the BFC as a ticket out of the POW camps, aware that the war was going badly for Germany. A few BFC members as we have found had either German girlfriends or married German women.

Other members used their time in the BFC as a means of intelligence gathering, which they used as currency to avoid prosecution after the war, for aiding the enemy. In the chaos of mid-1945, Pleasants and John Leister made their escape with their wives, interestingly a marriage certificate copy photographed survives of Pleasants and his German wife's marriage, signed by SS Chief Himmler, which was reprinted in Pleasants's second book entitled 'Hitler's Bastard'.

A number of the known and documented BFC members were truculent troublemakers, so it could be said that they worked against their 'employers' and so aided the Allied cause as they added nothing to the third reich's cause and seemed to be more trouble than they were worth to their employers. There is plenty of evidence in both the Ronald Seth and Adrian Weale books to corroborate this. Perhaps some joined to disrupt the BFC where possible?

John Amery detained in 1945, he would later be hanged 
by Albert Pierrepoint for aiding the enemy

As the war was ending, some of the BFC were sent to Berlin to fight on the closing in Eastern front.  The Soviet advance was now in Germany's back garden on the outer edges of Berlin. Some BFC soldiers fought the Russian advance in this area often making up staff in temporary units along with other SS troops particularly in the Nordland division with what was about all that was left of the German fighting force of Wermacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine troops along with the Volksturm (Home Guard) and Hitler Youth volunteers on the ground.

Above a letter to a British newspaper mentioning BFC members in action in Berlin

Historians have often played down or denied that the BFC members fought in action or effectively, the above letter came to light as the result of a conversation between a Russian Officer and a British soldier on National Service in post war Berlin. It details two BFC men one of whom was killed in action defending the city.

The Russian Officer said 'they had taken the man's Soldbuch (German pay book)', so presumably the death of the 'British' German soldier is recorded in Soviet military records somewhere.

It is said 8 BFC men held off a number of Soviet Troops and they fought heroically according to the Russian. The letter writer was a National Serviceman in Berlin in 1946 or 47 so the dates would correspond, as the Russians stayed in Germany in number until the GDR established an army.

Thomas Cooper - half German by birth who had gone to Germany before WW2, 

he had fought on the Eastern Front with the SS and won the Iron Cross and was the only British man to receive the Silver wound badge, he later joined the BFC as an organiser and was in the battle for Berlin with remains of the BFC.

Adrian Weale's book on the BFC - a signed copy which I found at a militaria fair

Adrian Weale wrote a book on the BFC called Renegades, it is an interesting read and also  in a way disappointing, that with his access to the wealth of research material that there wasn't more detail on individual members, although there is a list of BFC personnel (names and numbers of BFC personnel varies from book to book I have found).

The BFC for what it was does merit more information being brought to the fore for historical reasons, embarrassing as it might be for some in Britain. For historical purposes it would be useful to see the motivations and reasons why some chose to support essentially 'the enemy'. 

It is however ironic that a short while later, the 'Cold War' would see a hostility towards the Soviet bloc in which the Western Allied powers were involved until 1989.

Enamel badge which I have not seen before possibly from the BFC era?

Indeed Adrian Weale in this book reports that two other Allied POWs served in the German forces, on the Eastern Front and were decorated with the Iron cross and then returned to POW camps before the capitulation, these men were allegedly not prosecuted for aiding the enemy, strangely enough. Some British people became naturalised Germans before the war and were not prosecuted for their part.

Eric Pleasants's book from 1957 - written with Eddie Chapman

(Chapman was 'Agent Zigzag' - a British 'double' agent in WW2)

Post WW2, a list of the BFC members was put together and the personnel were tracked down by Scotland Yard officers (given temporary military rank I read). Some BFC members had managed to conceal their true identities and were never found, some were merely fined or warned about their conduct.

Eddie Chapman - known as Agent Zigzag and also as a safebreaker

Some BFC members were tried and given prison sentences which ranged markedly, from a few years to life terms. Exceptions were made for people like John Amery or William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw as he was known for his 'Germany calling' broadcasts) who were both hanged for their efforts.

Eric Pleasants and his German wife lived in the Soviet occupied zone after the war, he helped citizens escape to the American zone and was apprehended by the Soviets after his activities were betrayed.

Subjected to a farcical 'Troika' court, he was sentenced to 25 years for espionage, being released early because he was a foreign prisoner, when Stalin died in 1953. Pleasants was sent to the Vorkuta labour camp in the Gulag system. Pleasants's wife was interned in a camp but knowledge of her after is perhaps unknown thereafter and he never saw her again.

Pleasants was exchanged at the Berlin East - West border in 1953 and returned to England - he faced no criminal charges having been judged to have been punished enough from his time in the Gulag. Perhaps by this time it was thought best to let these matters rest?

Eric Pleasants's second book which candidly and uncompromisingly 

tells his story of the war and his life in Soviet captivity, an interesting read.

Pleasants wrote two accounts of his experiences - the first was in 1957 with Eddie Chapman. Chapman who like Pleasants had been interred in Jersey 1940. Chapman was a safebreaker and had been caught and was in prison in Jersey when the Germans invaded.

As a means of escape Chapman offered to work for the Abwehr - the German intelligence service and became part of the British Intelligence's successful 'XX' Double Cross operation which MI5 operated. As soon as Chapman reached Britain, he reported to the security services and was used as a double agent by them against Germany for the duration of the war.

BFC Members on parade in Germany

Although much has been said about the effectiveness of the BFC, members of it did fulfil its objectives in fighting in the East against the Soviets. Members such as John Leister were sent to the 'Kurt Eggers' unit as a translator to assist with propaganda broadcasts. 

Kurt Eggers was a German playwright who wrote for the Third Reich, Eggers died in a Panzer Korps battle on the Eastern Front. The Kurt Eggers unit was raised as a propaganda unit, not as an armed or fighting unit.

Other members were sent to other duties in other units as required by their 'employers' mainly as SS military police but some went into active military units in the East. Various numbers are given for the number of BFC members in the service of the Third Reich at any one time or in total, from as few as 25, up to 300. Thomas Cooper was stated as being in the Liebestandarte Adolf Hitler - Hitler's personal bodyguard for a short while.

Given that the BFC was only small in number, curiously, supposedly up to 800 Union Jack sleeve patches were said to have been produced for the unit. As they say if you want to find out something, follow the money. The problem here is that with resources in Germany scarce, they are unlikely to have speculatively wasted resources on producing these patches for a largely 'small' number of actual members?

Somewhere paper orders must exist with orders for that requirement and other equipment for the BFC? The BFC would have been no different from any other unit in that respect. The Germans were very meticulous at record keeping which was also part of their undoing in the end.

Despite the war ending in 1945, 

factories continued making Third Reich insignia 

and other items such as Daggers to sell to the occupying troops

The old militaria dealer I knew called 'Jim' also told a group of collectors he gave a talk to which I attended, that a register allegedly existed, held in Switzerland of 1200 names of BFC men. In Adrian Weale's book, the existence of 1200 applications to join the BFC is also mentioned, but sadly the individual names are not disclosed. (Perhaps those applications were made for some reason, to gain better treatment perhaps, but without any intention to act upon them and become active BFC members?) 

(A BFC man Railton Freeman is quoted that he had seen the 'list of 1200 applications', although one source has stated the BFC membership as 1500.)

The thing that 'Jim' told us was that the man who had the BFC register was told 'if he brought it into the UK he would be arrested' - Jim's actual words. Which goes to show how seriously the BFC was being regarded, fifty years later and how much of an embarrassment this was still considered to Britain in the 1990s. 

Had this book of names come to light at the end of the war, it would have been embarrassing perhaps for a post war government even as early as 1945 to have to potentially had to try in the Old Bailey all 1200 names to prove intention to act against the Crown, even by association of making the application to join what was an enemy force? For Stalin, it could have been a propaganda coup.

Potentially, offences of Treason could have been brought, but would the British people be of the opinion that these people deserved to die by hanging if found guilty? 

As a percentage of the total Allied POW's in the western region quoted as 257,000, the 1200 BFC members although sizeable in its own right would be fairly small, but a possible embarrassment nonetheless.

Another footnote perhaps is that those 1200 'names' were possibly already engaged fighting on the Eastern front and had perhaps already been killed or captured? Whether that is true is open to speculation, but over 55,000 allied POWs were retained by Stalin and never returned after WW2. Could any survivors of these 1200 who were not able to escape to the Western Allied sector be amongst those captive in Stalin's Gulag system?

Certainly if 'lost' in that mass, it would prevent any real identification and disclosure? Some Allied POW's did escape from Soviet captivity and run for their lives from the Soviets retention in 1945 to the allied lines. The ones that didn't run were never seen again and are still classed as 'MIA' and were 'written off' by the governments of the day who knew where they had gone.

The retention of the Allied POWs (is detailed in a book called 'Soldiers of Misfortune' by James D. Sanders) and the reason they were kept was because Stalin wanted all the Soviets returned from captivity or who had served Germany, even if they were POWs of the Germans and did not want to return to Russia and as bargaining chips, which he repeated in the Korean War where some Allied POW's were not released. 

There was also demands in 1945 for the return of Bylerussian troops and a Ukranian SS division made up of Russian citizens which were retained by the Allied forces (in case the Soviets allegedly launched a military campaign in their sector) which the Allies refused - the Ukranians knew that if they were returned they would be killed, as allegedly were many Cossack troops and their families returned from Austria in 1945 to the Russians. (Churchill allegedly also wanted to retain these troops in case they were needed to use against a Soviet offensive.)

The intended 'retention' of the division by the West was allegedly leaked to the Soviets by Kim Philby an MI6 Section 9 agent who was 'blown' in the 1950's as a double agent  allegedly working for the KGB. 

In the wake of  WW2, the BFC was largely confined to the history books. After the Old Bailey trials for some of the BFC members in 1945, the subject faded from public knowledge apart from the odd newspaper article appearing from time to time.

And from time to time we see varying reports of how many BFC members there actually were, usually anything from 25 - 60. 

But as we have seen from chance information from that Russian Officer, others were there. Perhaps the man whose Soldbuch was taken from his body was from the '1200 list'? His name was stated as Reginald Leslie Cornfield and his name does not appear in the list of BFC members in Weale's book.

The 10 BFC men who fought in Berlin were killed, 8 in battle and Cornfield and a man stated as being named as Pleed, were killed by the Soviets when their ammunition ran out. The Russian Officer said they had fought well. 

In the fighting for Berlin, the BFC men were given the new MP44 assault rifle, later an influence on Andrei Kalashnikov for this AK-47 rifle. By the time the BFC were deployed, Berlin was starting to fall into chaos and the BFC were in most cases, withdrawn to a support role, helping civilians and moving supplies around.

At the end of WW2, information was hidden and sought out to avoid embarrassment which is a matter of record now, perhaps some of the information on the BFC is some of that.